The present invention relates to a printing system, a printing method, a converting device, a data processing method and a printing device, more particularly to a printing method, a converting device, a data processing method and a printing device, which are capable of achieving a cost reduction as the entire system.
As a computer network (hereinafter referred to as a xe2x80x9cnetworkxe2x80x9d) represented by the Internet has become spread in use, it has come to be proposed recently to connect various electronic devices and computer terminals to a network and utilize the electronic devices from the computer terminals. For example, there has been proposed a printing system in Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application 06-59833 published in March 1994, wherein a plurality of printers are connected to a network in such a manner that when a specific printer having received data from the host computer to print out is unable to execute its printing out for one reason or another, the printer transfers the received data to another printer where to print out the data.
In Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application 07-13722 published in January 1995, there has been proposed a printing system, wherein a plurality of printers are connected to a network in such a manner that when a specific printer having received data transmitted thereto through the network from the host computer to print out is not free, the printer transfers the transferred data through the network to another printer free for use for converting the data into raster image data (bitmap image data), and the raster image data thus converted is transferred through the network to the printer intended to print out raster image data when it becomes available to execute its printing out.
FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram showing a related art system of the above-described type. As shown in FIG. 1, a network 64 is composed of host computers 61-1 and 61-2 and a plurality of network printers 62-1, 62-2 and 62-3 connected thereto.
The network printer 62-1 (62-2 or 62-3) is composed of a raster image processor (RIP) 62-1A and an output engine 62-1B. The raster image processor 62-1A interprets page description language (PDL) data transmitted thereto through the network 64 from the host computer 61-1 (or the host computer 61-2) and converts the language into raster image data, and the output engine 62-1B prints out the raster image data produced by the RIP 62-1A on paper or the like. The RIP 62-1A and the output engine 62-1B are integrated into the network printer 62-1. Alternatively, for the network printer 62-3, the RIP 62-3A is connected to an output engine 62-3B through an exclusive interface 62-3C.
For example, the RIP 62-1A of the network printer 62-1, when it receives data transmitted thereto throughout the network 64 from the host computer 61-1, interprets its PDL data and converts the received data into raster image data. The raster image data is transferred to the output engine 62-1B to print out the data on paper or the like.
A printer used in a related art system is composed of a RIP and output engine as described above. A RIP is particularly expensive and makes all printers connected to the network 64 inevitably expensive. Because this RIP requires fonts, all the printers need to be provided with these fonts, which makes them expensive.
An object of the present invention is to provide a printing system, a printing method, a converting device, a data processing method, and a printing device, which are capable of achieving a cost reduction as a whole and of selecting a desired printer quickly without fail.
In a printing system and a printing method according to one aspect of the present invention, a command device supplies page description language data representing print-out data and a designation code designating a printing device to carry out printing-out to a converting device through a network. The converting device converts the page description language data transmitted thereto from the command device through the network into a raster image data and outputs the converted raster image data together with a print-out command to the printing device designated by the command device. In response to this command, the printing device prints out the raster image data transmitted thereto from the converting device through the network.
According to the printing system and the printing method having the above configuration, the converting device converts page description language data transmitted thereto from a command device through the network into raster image data which is transferred to the printing device through the network for its printing-out, so that the system can be reduced in cost as a whole. Because a designation code is transferred from the converting device to the command device, the command device is not required to keep the addresses of printing devices under its management, so that a desired printing device can be selected quickly without fail.
In a converting device and a data processing method according to another aspect of the present invention, a converting device, when it receives a print-out command from a command device, notifies a pre-set printing device to the command device through a network. When receiving page description language data representing print-out data from the command device through the network, the converting device converts the received page description language data into raster image data which is transferred through the network to the address of a printing device designated by the command device.
According to the converting device and the data processing method having the above configuration, the addresses of printing devices connected to the network are stored in the command device and the command device designates a desired one among the stored printing devices, so that the command device is not required to keep the network addresses of printing devices under its management, allowing a desired printing device to execute its printing-out quickly without fail.
In a printing device and a printing method according to a further aspect of the present invention, a printing device not having a function to convert page description language data into raster image data receives raster image data transmitted from a converting device through a network and prints-out the raster image data thus received.
According to the printing device and the printing method having the above configuration, the printing device substantially having no function to convert page description language data into raster image data prints out the raster image data transmitted through the network as it is, so that it is possible to simplify the structure of the printing device and reduce the cost thereof.